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Office Online Server 2016: how to determine the build number

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Introduction

This posting consolidates notes and experience associated with determining the version and build number for a deployed on-premises instance of Office Online Server 2016, for a single-server Office Online Server farm.

There are two principle ways to obtain the build number of a deployed instance of Office Online Server 2016:

  • View the contents of the OfficeVersion.inc file
  • View the value of the X-OfficeVersion header

The OfficeVersion.inc file resides on each Office Online Server 2016 server in the Office Online Server farm.  The X-OfficeVersion header value can be obtained in several ways, including using:

  • Invoke-WebRequest
  • Browser Developer Tools

This posting explores all of these methods.

View the Contents of OfficeVersion.inc

There are two ways to get to this file. You can navigate to it and open it in NotePad, or you can use the PowerShell Get-Content commandlet.  Both ways are shown here.

01) Remote into the Windows server hosting Office Online Server 2016.

02) Navigate to this folder:

  • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\OfficeWebApps\Data\local\

If you copy the above path and paste it into Explorer, you will likely experience an error, "Windows can't find..."  This is because one of the folders in this path, OfficeWebApps, requires elevated permission to open.  Navigate to this folder first, accept the permission grant, and then continue.

03) Look for this file and open it in NotePad

  • OfficeVersion.inc

04) Opening the file, you'll see several numbers.  The build number begins with "RMJ"

Use Get-Content

01) Open a PowerShell shell.

02) Execute the following commandlet:

  • get-content -Path "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\OfficeWebApps\Data\local\OfficeVersion.inc"

03) The file contents will be displayed in the shell.  The build number begins with RMJ,

View the value of the web page header X-OfficeVersion

There are several methods for determine web page headers.  Some include using the PowerShell commandlet Invoke-WebRequest or using browser developer tools.   A network sniffer can also be used. Just the two simplest methods will be explored here.

Use Invoke-WebRequest

01) Remote into the Windows server hosting Office Online Server 2016.

It's convenient to do this on the Office Online Server as you'll see shortly, but it doesn't have to be.  You can execute the Invoke-WebRequest commandlet from a shell on your local machine just as well if you know all the parameters.

02) Launch an elevated instance of Windows PowerShell.

03) Execute the following commandlet to obtain the Office Online Server 2016 farm's internal or external URL:

Get-OfficeWebAppsFarm

04) Note down the value for InternalURL or ExternalURL, whichever is appropriate.  For this posting, let's assume its oos.contoso.com.

05) Build the commandlet you need to execute:

(Invoke-WebRequest -URI "https://oos.contoso.com/op/servicebusy.htm" -Method Get -UseDefaultCredential).Headers

This uses one of the Office Online Server op pages located here: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Web Apps\OpenFromUrlWeb.  You can use the ServiceBusy.htm page or any of the other HTM pages located in this folder - any of these return a value for the X-OfficeVersion header.

06) Now execute it.  Among the headers returned, you'll see the value for X-OfficeVersion.  This is the build number of the Office Online Server farm.

Use a Browser Developer Tool

01) Launch any browser of choice - Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, it doesn't matter. 

02) Connect to a SharePoint site on the farm.

03) Navigate to a document library on the site that has been configured to open the document in the browser.

04) Press F12 to launch the browser's developer tool, and then select the Network tab in the developer tool.

05) Click on any Office document type - PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etc.  

06) Scroll down the list of resource name/paths until you find powerpointframe, wordviewerframe, etc, in the path, or anything that has the Office Online Server's InternalURL or ExternalURL in it, and then select it.

07) Now scroll down through the response headers until you find x-officeversion: this will present the Office Online Server's build number.

References

Notes

  • Use the PowerShell commandlet Get-OfficeWebAppsFarm, in an elevated PowerShell window on the Office Online Server, to get a listing of the deployed Office Online Server's configuration parameters.
  • All of the common browsers, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc have developer tools, and they all launch by hitting F12.  It doesn't matter which one you use as they all generally present the same information.
  • If you want, you can also view the O365 Office Online Server build number using browser developer tools.  Just navigate to the SharePoint online site, and document library, and then click on any Office document.  On the Network tab, look for path/names that include office.net, and select one.  Then review the response headers: you'll see it there.